Game 4, Mariners At Rangers
Bedard vs Holland, 5:05 pm.
I’m excited to watch Erik Bedard throw tonight. I’m not excited about the circumstances of his first regular season start in nearly two years. The Rangers beat the Red Sox to a bloody pulp this weekend, posting a ridiculous .469 team wOBA in thier match-up against some pretty good Boston pitchers. For comparison, the best wOBA of Albert Pujols’ career is .462, so if you’ve wondered what a line-up of nine Pujols’ would look like, just rewind the tape and watch what Texas just did to Boston.
Of course, it’s just three games that don’t mean anything for predictive puposes, but this a good Rangers offense, and Arlington is not your typical cold-and-damp April climate. The ball was flying out of the park all weekend, and so Bedard is going to have make sure he keeps the ball down and misses bats, or else the Rangers could spoil his return to the mound with some crooked numbers in a hurry.
Based on what he was throwing in Spring Training, he’s still got the stuff to get good hitters out, regardless of the situation. I just wish it wasn’t trial by fire right off the bat.
Oh, and the Rangers are throwing LHP Derek Holland tonight, so the M’s offense is likely to get shut down again. If the M’s are going to win, they’re going to need Bedard to be amazing.
Ichiro, RF
Figgins, 3B
Bradley, LF
Cust, DH
Smoak, 1B
Olivo, C
Langerhans, CF
Ryan, SS
Wilson, 2B
Rebuilding and the Draft
Rebuilding is a dirty word in baseball. In football or basketball, it’s possible to cobble together a youth movement with a few savvy trades and a strong draft. If you’re lucky, you’ll be competing again by year two. In baseball, if a player is even on a MLB roster after two years as a pro, it’s a rare return. The 40-man rules are even set up so that prospects don’t need to be protected from the Rule 5 draft until three or four years into their careers, and even then given three or more option years to be sent back to the minors. The development of prospects in baseball, even for the best of them, takes time. Even worse, when a team starts talking about a rebuilding effort, very often they’re dealing with a stretch where the organization wasn’t able to produce good, young players. Fans get impatient, journalists get impatient, owners get impatient, and before long, whatever groundwork a new GM worked to lay is now being salvaged off for quicker fixes. Rebuilding efforts are both perilous and time consuming.
What follows here is a study of the return the Mariners have gotten from the draft from 2003 to 2007. Anything more recent would be a bit too soon and anything before that would only upset everyone. The goal isn’t to make anyone sick so much as show how the present youth movement, while well-intentioned, is operating with substantial constraints left over by previous administrations. Let’s get to it then, here comes the horror show. I swear this hurts me more than it hurts you…
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Game 3, Mariners At A’s
Fister vs Gonzalez, 1:05 pm.
If you’re wondering, there probably won’t be recap posts on weekends – despite being a blogger, I actually do strive to have some kind of social life. I’ll play catchup on the important stuff during the week.
M’s face another lefty in Gio Gonzalez today, and while they’ve been able to get to some of the LH relievers the A’s have used in the first few days, you still shouldn’t expect this team to be able to hit southpaws. WIth Gutierrez out and the only options to replace him both left-handed bats, the M’s essentially have to run out a minimum of three LHBs every day, and several of the right-handed bats in the line-up have minimal offensive ability. The offense essentially has to come from Ichiro and the three switch-hitters, with maybe a little bit of help from Miguel Olivo. If those guys don’t hit, the team isn’t going to score.
Getting Gutierrez back eventually will help to some degree, but this is never going to be a strong line-up against southpaws, and right now, it’s especially weak. The M’s will need Fister and the bullpen to keep the A’s off the scoreboard for a third straight game if they’re going to complete the sweep.
AL West Prospects Part II: Long Term Impact
The M’s start 2011 as the odds on favorite to finish last in the AL West. That the M’s are not in Texas’ class is a judgment that unites the columnists, sabermetric projection systems and probably most Mariner fans. Fangraphs assessment of the M’s current talent is brutal (27th!) but understandable. While the M’s had an edge over many teams financially, they’re clearly not the Yankees – and with the new television deal negotiated by the Rangers, the M’s are a step behind Anaheim and Texas.
Regression to the mean will help the M’s avoid 100 losses, but how can this team compete in the next 3-5 years in this division? While Jack Zduriencik was able to address a few of the black holes in the 2010 line-up with low-key trades and free agent pick-ups, he’s still got work to do. Essentially, the M’s need their prospects to narrow the (considerable) gap between themselves and the rest of the division.
As you know, the cupboard was pretty bare when Zduriencik became GM, and he’s won plaudits from people like us for restocking the system with guys like Nick Franklin, Ji-Man Choi, Rich Poythress, etc. But how do these guys – the guys a year or two from the majors – stack up with the prospects of the A’s, Angels and Rangers?
Beyond the guys I mentioned in the first post, the big three in each system are:
Angels: Mike Trout, Jean Segura, Garrett Richards
A’s: Grant Green, Michael Choice, Ian Krol
Rangers: Martin Perez, Jurickson Profar, Robbie Erlin
Mariners: Nick Franklin, Johermyn Chavez, Taijuan Walker
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Game 2, Mariners At A’s
Vargas vs Anderson, 6:05 pm.
Haven’t seen a line-up for tonight as of posting time, but with a lefty on the hill for Oakland, I wouldn’t anticipate any changes. Anderson is their version of Felix, so the M’s are going to need some breaks to win tonight. A half dozen more errors by Oakland would be just fine with me.
Game One Recap
I’d suggest that the M’s won that one for Dave, but he’s worthy of a better win than the one we just saw, so we’ll save that for when the team isn’t handed a gift by their opponents. We’ll just get this out of the way quickly so we can move on to the positives from an opening night victory for your first place Seattle Mariners – the A’s played as bad a baseball game as you can play. They were officially charged with five errors, and it probably should have been six, given Pennington’s lousy throw home on the Olivo collision play. That was a rather embarrassing defensive performance from Oakland tonight.
But, credit to the M’s, they took advantage of some of the opportunities they were given. After stranding a bunch of runners early, Ichiro had a classic Ichiro base hit to score Brendan Ryan (and he stole two bases), Jack Cust did what he does and drew a bunch of walks, Justin Smoak ripped a double into the gap (off a lefty, no less), and Chone Figgins hit a home run. The M’s got some help from the A”s, but they also created a few rallies.
It was frustrating early when they couldn’t get anyone in, but if you keep putting men on base, you’ll eventually come away with runs, and the M’s essentially won by attrition tonight. We know this team isn’t the ’27 Yankees, but if they can draw walks and get a few extra base hits per night, they’ll score enough runs to not be a laughing stock.
As for Felix, well, this is why he’s The King – that wasn’t his most dominating performance ever, but he knew he was going up against a mediocre line-up, so he pounded the strike zone and let them hit the ball right at his infielders. He pitched to contact because he could, and while he elevated a few fastballs early, he was able to get the groundouts he wanted for most of the game. You won’t look back at this start like his one-hitter in Boston, but it was an efficient, workman-like performance from a guy who has figured out how to pitch.
There will be nights when Felix needs to strike everyone out, or his stuff is so ridiculous that opposing hitters just can’t touch him. Tonight was not one of those nights, so instead, he just got a bunch of ground ball outs and took a complete game victory. That he can do stuff like this now is one of the reasons he’s so great – the strikeout ability is still there, but he also knows how to back off when facing a weaker offense, and that’s exactly what he did tonight.
Mature Felix is a lot of fun to root for. Long Live The Grownup King.
Game 1, Mariners At A’s
Felix vs Cahill, 7:05 pm.
Happy Felix Day, Happy Opening Day, and Sad We Miss You Dave Niehaus Day.
Those are three stories that are going to dominate the evening. It’s day one of 2011 for the M’s, it’s our first Felix Day of the year, and it’s the first time in franchise history that we will begin the season without Dave’s voice welcoming us back for another season. The home opener next week will be more emotional, I’m sure, but this is still going to be hard.
Once we dry the eyes, though, the attention will turn to Felix. There are worse ways to find comfort than geting to watch The King take the hill to start the season. We all know about the problems the rest of the roster has, but when he’s on the mound, the team has a real chance to win. And, perhaps more importantly, be fun to watch. Felix makes this team interesting.
The line-up:
Ichiro, RF
Figgins, 3B
Bradley, LF
Cust, DH
Smoak, 1B
Olivo, C
Langerhans, CF
Ryan, SS
Wilson, 2B
What Would A Successful 2011 Mariner Season Look Like?
After telling us to “Believe Big” last year, the mood around this year’s team is much more subdued. While I’m sure that everyone on the field staff will tell you that their goal is to win, the reality of the situation is that the Mariners are longshots to really contend this year. Like with any team, there are scenarios where the Mariners could get a bunch of unexpectedly great performances and shock the world, but the odds of this team ending up in the playoffs are probably 10 percent or less.
It’s possible that the M’s could be this year’s version of what the Padres were last year, winning a bunch of low-scoring games with smoke and mirrors and hanging around until September. However, the more likely outcome is that they don’t prevent enough runs to win while scoring four runs per game, and they end the season with somewhere between 70 and 80 wins. Less than 70 wins is probably a minor disaster, while more than 80 is a very pleasant surprise. But, in that 70-80 win range, there’s a lot of different potential outcomes that will determine whether this season is retroactively seen as a success or not. The win total won’t really determine the optimism that the organization takes into 2012, but specific developments likely will. As we stand here waiting for the first pitch of the 2011 season, here are the five things that I believe will drive the perception of this coming season as a success or failure.
1. The Development Of Justin Smoak As A Hitter
The M’s targeted Smoak last summer because the organization had a glaring need for a power hitting first baseman who could take advantage of Safeco’s friendliness to left-handed bats. They needed a guy who could get on base and drive runners in, producing runs in the middle of the order at a bargain salary that would fit into the team’s budget. As a first round pick who tore up the minors, Smoak offers the potential to be that guy, but he also showed quite a few warts after coming over from Texas. His strikeout rate was absurdly high, his struggles against left-handed pitching alarming, and his defense at first base was not as advertised. Instead of being a future star, Smoak looked like a solid platoon player if he made enough adjustments to hit big league pitching. That’s not what the team thought they were getting, though, and that’s not what they need.
If Smoak can show some real improvement and put up a .280/.350/.500 line, he’ll offer some real hope for the future and allow the team to focus on other areas for long term improvement. If he continues to swing through hittable fastballs and get exploited by left-handed pitchers, however, the organization might have to re-consider whether he’s good enough to be a middle-of-the-order hitter on a team that wants to win.
2. The Development Of Dustin Ackley As A Second Baseman
Despite offensive numbers that could be construed as a disappointment last year, I’m not concerned about Ackley’s bat. He’s going to hit for average and draw a lot of walks, and while reasonable people can differ over his power potential, the real key to his value is how well he’ll be able to play second base. He has the physical abilities to be solid and maybe even good there, but he still shows his inexperience too frequently. A .300/.370/.450 guy is a star if he’s a good defensive second baseman, but he’s just a nice regular if he has to move back to the outfield. The team intentionally set up second base placeholders to allow him to get to Seattle quickly, but it’s glove, not his bat, that will determine how fast he can make that transition. Quick improvements in turning the double play would help tremendously, and give the team an offensive shot in the arm that they could really use.
3. The Development Of Michael Pineda‘s Change-Up
I’ll stop using the development headline after this one, I promise. I wrote about this two weeks ago, so I won’t re-hash too much of that post, but how quickly Pineda develops a weapon against left-handers will tell us quite a bit about how realistic it will be to expect him to be able to slide into the #2 spot in the rotation behind Felix next year. If he can get lefties out, then the M’s will have two dynamite young arms. That’s still an if, though, and the organization would love to have the answer to that question turn out in a positive way.
4. Can They Get Franklin Gutierrez Healthy?
Like it or not, Gutierrez is still the M’s third best player, and having him on the sidelines with an undiagnosed illness is a real problem. The M’s gave Guti a five year contract, so it’s not like they can just move on if this turns out to be a long term issue. They need to get Gutierrez healthy and back to being a +15 center fielder with a league average bat. This team doesn’t have enough talent to have him turn into a part-time player. They need him to get back to being a good everyday guy, but first, they just have to figure out what’s wrong.
5. Are The Young Bullpen Guys Good Enough To Build Around?
With Tom Wilhelmsen, Josh Lueke, Dan Cortes, and potentially returning-from-injury guys Shawn Kelley and Mauricio Robles, the M’s have an assortment of interesting young relievers that are near Major League ready. The current bullpen is full of replacement level placeholders, so for the team to get back to having a shut down bullpen, they’ll need several of these young guys to really develop into shutdown relief aces. There’s questions surrounding all of them, however, and projecting reliever performance is never easy. The team probably has enough arms that they can expect one or two to develop into good late inning options, but ideally, they’d be able to breed an entire new bullpen out of some the guys coming up through the system. If Cortes and Lueke fail to live up to their potential, then the team will have to go reliever shopping again next winter, and that’s money that needs to be spent elsewhere.
There are other guys on the roster whose performances matter as well, but for the most part, this organization’s direction will be judged based on the outcomes of these five variables. If most of them go the M’s way, odds are good that they’ll be seen as a team on the rise with prospects for contention next year. If they get poor results from these guys, though, then we could be in for a long year and a lot of speculation about where this team is headed.
Luis Rodriguez Officially A Mariner
The M’s finalized their roster after tonight’s exhibition with the Dodgers, purchasing the contracts of Ryan Langerhans and Luis Rodriguez to fill the final two spots on the bench. Langerhans, you know, but Rodriguez is a new face to the organization, and probably one that you haven’t seen much of a reason to be overly interested in. After all, he’s filling the last spot on the roster – how interesting could he be?
More interesting than you might think. I’m pretty happy to see the M’s decide to carry Rodriguez, as he offers some upside that you don’t generally expect from the last guy on the bench. If you didn’t click the link, it goes to my writeup of Rodriguez from last August where I compared his development to that of Andres Torres, who found some late-career power and turned himself into a good Major Leaguer. Rodriguez had a monster season for Charlotte last year, and while it could just be one of those fluke seasons that happens from time to time, there’s also a chance that Rodriguez learned how to drive the ball last year, and there’s some chance that could carry over to 2011.
If even part of Rodriguez’s breakout was real, he could actually be a decent role player for the M’s both this year and going forward. Right now, Adam Kennedy and Jack Wilson are sharing the second base job, but they’re basically keeping the seat warm for Dustin Ackley. If Jack Wilson is traded this summer as expected, the team will need some kind of right-handed second baseman to give Ackley a day off against tough left-handers here and there. Kennedy’s left-handed bat makes him ill-suited for that role, but Rodriguez is a switch-hitter who could slide into the spot and give the team a guy who can give them a different look at second base when Ackley’s slumping or just needs a breather.
Additionally, there’s also the possibility that Chone Figgins could play well enough this year to give him some trade value at the deadline, in which case the team would be in need of a replacement at third base. With the possibility of drafting Anthony Rendon this summer, the organization could certainly end up looking for a short-term solution who could provide some value at the position in the short term. Rodriguez certainly isn’t your prototypical third baseman, but if he shows some of the power he displayed in Charlotte last year, he could hit enough to provide some offense from the hot corner.
He’s not a young hotshot prospect by any means, but there are late bloomers in baseball, and Rodriguez showed enough in Triple-A last year to earn another shot in the big leagues. Having him around as a reserve infielder gives the team to evaluate whether the power spike was real and see if he can force his way into more regular playing time. If he does, they might just have a nice little player on their hands. It’s the kind of potential reward that the likes of Josh Wilson simply didn’t offer, and it’s why I like the call for Rodriguez as the 25th man.
He may very well just go back to hitting like he has the rest of his career, and if that happens, he probably won’t be on this team for more than a month or two. But, on the off chance that he hits like he did in 2010, then the bench would suddenly be a bit more interesting.
Exhibition Game Thread, M’s at Dodgers
The Cactus League part of the season is over and done with. Now, for a meaningless game against the Dodgers in which most of the regulars will be pulled early in exchange for scrubs. This will be televised, both on FSN/Root Sports locally and MLB.TV for free and with no blackouts. I would watch it because of the possibility of prospects, but that’s just me. Erik Bedard pitching should also be a draw.
RF Ichiro!
3B Figgins
LF Bradley
DH Cust
1B Smoak
CF Langerhans
SS Ryan
2B Wilson
P Bedard
Behind Bedard, we have Wilhelmsen, League, and Ray available, along with minor leaguers such as LHP Brian Moran, Mr. Excitement RHP Scott Patterson, RHP Josh Fields, and RHP Steve Hensely available after those guys. I’d consider running Moran out there just to help wash the taste of the last outing out of his mouth. No word on the minor league position players that followed the caravan to L.A.